Sunday, March 10, 2013

Where Tradition and Innovation Meet

Traditional Chinese Medicine is rooted in over 2,000 years of rich history. As with any field, history and tradition are the roots of stability that continues its survival. In addition, every field also needs the growing branches of innovation to progress it into new territories and advances... and this is where tradition and innovation meet.

Traditional Chinese Medicine is ripe for innovation in all areas from herbs to needles to practice management. And as with any change and disruption, it will not be easy and it will be difficult for some to accept. Many will argue that the status quo of doing things have been working for years and that there is no reason to change. However, the change agents realize that the old way of doing business will not take the field to the next level that it needs to get to.

I believe that through technology, there are better ways of caring for patients and measuring patient progress. And all this can be achieved by a stable foundation of a good practice management software that is dedicated to continuous improvement, continuous innovation and the continuous respect of tradition.

I've recently been thinking through the problem of measuring patient progress and came across an amazing example of the out of box thinking and innovation that can happen in acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine. The example is a 2012 FastCompany article entitled, "A New High-Tech Upgrade To Acupuncture Lets You See It’s Working In Real Time" by Elizabeth Woyke. The article talks about an invention by Kiseok Song, a Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) student, who thought up the idea of a smart acupuncture needle, which let's you wirelessly measure electrical activity the needles are stimulating in a patient's muscle. Below is an image of the technology from the article.

This invention by Song is an example of the innovation that can happen with technology in a 2,000 year old field.

In the coming blog posts, I will show some of the innovations that is being built into the Jasmine Practice Management product. If you are an acupuncturist and Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner, who has ideas for improvements in your own practice, we would love to talk to you! You can email me at mintotsai@jasminepm.com.
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